YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon plans to travel to Myanmar this week, to try to speed up troubled aid operations for victims of the devastating cyclone that hit the country earlier this month.
His spokeswoman, Michele Montas, said Sunday that Ban was expected to arrive in the Southeast Asian country Wednesday evening and travel to the Irrawaddy delta, the area hit the hardest by Cyclone Nargis.
She said Ban hoped to meet with senior members of Myanmar's reclusive military government, but she could not immediately identify which ones.
``The objective of the trip is to dramatically accelerate the flow of disaster relief,'' Montas said.
Food, medicine and other outside aid have been slow to reach Myanmar because the junta, suspicious of the outside world, has been reluctant to let in foreign relief and the workers to distribute it.
Word of Ban's planned trip came the same day the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, John Holmes, arrived in Myanmar and was greeted by Deputy Foreign Minister Kyaw Thu at the start of a three-day trip that will include a tour of the Irrawaddy delta.
U.N. officials say Holmes' mission is to assess the needs of survivors, and urge the isolationist junta to open its doors to more international aid before people begin dying from starvation and diseases.
Myanmar state television said the hunta's leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, visited two relief camps Sunday -- the first time he has met with the survivors since the cyclone hit more than two weeks ago.
The latest developments came as world leaders expressed outrage at the handling of the disaster by the military regime, which insists it is managing relief operations perfectly well on its own despite evidence that many of the 2.5 million survivors are living in misery -- with little food, shelter, medical help, clean drinking water or sanitation.
About 78,000 people are confirmed dead and 56,000 missing in the cyclone, according to the government. But aid agencies say the death toll in Myanmar, also known as Burma, could actually be as high as 128,000.
A glimmer of hope was raised Sunday when British Foreign Office Minister for Asia Lord Malloch-Brown said Myanmar may accept a compromise, allowing Western ships to deliver aid in the country's cyclone-hit delta region using Asian intermediaries.
``We're just going to have see what negotiations in the coming days by the Asian leaders, by the U.N. secretary-general, achieve,'' Malloch-Brown told the British Broadcasting Corp. ``I think you're going to see quite dramatic steps by the Burmese to open up.''
But he suggested an agreement was still some way off.
A U.N. report said Saturday that emergency relief from the international community had reached an estimated 500,000 people only.
``This is inhuman,'' British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the BBC, accusing the military regime of caring more about its own survival than its people's welfare.
The junta says it has completed relief operations and now will turn to reconstruction. It has barred foreign aid experts, including the U.N.'s international staff, from traveling to the worst-hit Irrawaddy delta.
Aid agencies have been forced to depend on their limited local Myanmar staff to distribute relief in the delta.
On Sunday, the regime accused foreign news organizations of falsely reporting that the government was refusing or hindering international relief aid.
``Some foreign news agencies broadcast false information and thus some international and regional organizations are assuming that the government has been rejecting and preventing aid for storm victims,'' a government statement said. ``Those who have been to Myanmar understand the actual fact.''
But Save the Children, a global aid agency, said Sunday that thousands of young children face starvation without quick food aid.
``We are extremely worried that many children in the affected areas are now suffering from severe acute malnourishment, the most serious level of hunger,'' said Jasmine Whitbread, who heads the agency's operation in Britain. ``When people reach this stage, they can die in a matter of days.''
The U.N. report said the ruling generals were even forbidding the import of communications equipment, hampering already difficult contact among relief agencies.
The government has ordered that all equipment used by foreign agencies must be purchased through Myanmar's Ministry of Posts and Communications - with a maximum of 10 telephones per agency - for $1,500 each, it said.
The military junta's xenophobia stems from the fear that allowing foreign aid workers to mingle with ordinary people will embolden them to rebel against 46 years of authoritarian rule.
In one town near Yangon, tired and hungry refugees stood in the baking sun beside flooded rice paddies, demolished monasteries and thatched huts. With the arrival of each vehicle carrying precious food and water, they jumped with excitement and surged ahead to get a share.
At least they were getting something.
``The farther you go, the worse the situation,'' said an overwhelmed doctor in the town of Twante, just southwest of Yangon, Myanmar's main city. The doctor declined to give her name, fearing government reprisal.
